## Facts

- Cooper and others contracted with Ateliers de la Motobecane, S.A. (a French manufacturer) to form a New York corporation to distribute Motobecane products in the United States.
- The agreement permitted individual shareholders to tender their shares for repurchase at a contractually determined price.
- The agreement required disputes over share valuation/price to be arbitrated in Switzerland.
- In April 1978, Cooper tendered his shares; negotiations over price failed; Motobecane demanded arbitration in Switzerland.
- While litigation over whether arbitration could be stayed was pending, Cooper filed a separate New York action seeking a money judgment arising from the same relationship.
- In that second action, Cooper obtained an ex parte prejudgment attachment against a debt owed by the New York distributor corporation to Motobecane.
- The trial court dismissed the second action and vacated the attachment.
- The Appellate Division reversed, allowing the suit and attachment to proceed.
- Motobecane appealed to the New York Court of Appeals.

## Issues

1. Whether, when a dispute falls under the New York Convention and the parties agreed to arbitrate abroad, a party may file a parallel New York lawsuit and obtain a prejudgment attachment against the foreign party’s property or debts in New York.
2. Whether such pre-arbitration judicial proceedings and attachment are inconsistent with the Convention’s objective of enforcing foreign arbitration agreements with minimal court interference.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals reversed the Appellate Division.
- The court reinstated the trial court’s order dismissing the second action and vacating the ex parte attachment.
- The court held that allowing a parallel action and pre-arbitration attachment would conflict with the New York Convention’s pro-arbitration aims and New York’s policy favoring enforcement of arbitration agreements.

## Legal Principles

- Under the New York Convention, courts should enforce agreements to arbitrate abroad and limit pre-arbitration involvement largely to determining the existence and enforceability of the arbitration agreement and compelling arbitration when appropriate.
- Parallel litigation seeking a merits determination in court, when the dispute is committed to foreign arbitration, is inconsistent with the Convention’s purpose of reducing obstacles and uncertainty in international arbitration.
- Prejudgment attachment against a foreign party’s assets or debts in the forum, obtained before arbitration proceeds, may constitute impermissible interference with the arbitral process when it effectively forces the foreign party into local provisional-remedy litigation.
- New York public policy favoring arbitration, particularly in international commerce, supports rejecting litigation tactics that would circumvent or pressure the arbitral process.

## Conclusion

The New York Court of Appeals held that, for disputes governed by the New York Convention and subject to an agreement for foreign arbitration, New York courts should not permit a separate pre-arbitration damages action or prejudgment attachment that would interfere with the parties’ chosen arbitral forum.


Cooper v. Ateliers de la Motobecane, S.A., 57 N.Y.2d 408, 442 N.E.2d 1239 (N.Y. 1982)